John Doris: John Doris, who has died aged 101, was a renowned and colourful Longford businessman known for hard work and a willingness to take risks and opportunities during a turbulent period of Irish history.
A former Longford Man of the Year, he was known as very loyal and generous to friends, a great talker with "wonderful stories that kept everyone out late".
Doris was first a greyhound track co-owner, then a cinema chain shareholder and later a hotelier and publican. Involved in several other ventures, he was a very practical and realistic businessman who also liked to play. He loved horse racing and had excelled at inter-provincial badminton. He played tennis and rugby. In the late 1960s he was president of Longford Rugby Club.
He owned the Annaly Hotel, Longford, and the Glencormack Hotel, Kilmacanogue, Co Wicklow, until it was destroyed by fire in 1964.
Until he was 16 he lived in New York, where he was born to immigrant parents. Throughout his life he spoke with traces of a Brooklyn accent and retained US citizenship, never taking Irish citizenship. (On his 100th birthday he received congratulations from President Mary McAleese and President Bush.)
Doris was born in 1903 to Patrick and Delia (née Hannon) Doris. His mother was from Easky, Co Sligo, and had emigrated before marrying Patrick in New York in 1900. Patrick was one of five brothers, four of whom had emigrated with their sister in the late 19th century. As was customary at the time, the fifth brother stayed in Longford to mind the farm.
The Doris brothers were reasonably successful in running bars (though three were given away when the 1929 crash came). However, John's father was determined to return to Ireland, especially as prohibition was looming. He had bought two farms near Longford, one in 1912 and another in 1917, but first World War travel restrictions delayed re-emigration until 1919.
John's family returned to farming at Coradooey as the War of Independence was starting. He briefly attended St Mel's College, Longford, finding it difficult to adjust to small town life.
Locally the Doris family was considered "American" and seemed to be largely ignored by the Black and Tans. But once, the farm was raided for arms. As two lorry-loads of soldiers prepared to search the house his mother hid a shotgun under the stairs, he recalled in a Longford Leader interview with Robert Cox in 2003.
Following his father's death in 1934 and the economic war years John turned from family farming to business. His first job had been at the age of 12 in New York. Wearing his father's long trousers he lied about his age, making it 18. He and a cousin set out one morning at 5am and got started that day on $8 a week, helping to manufacture Linotype machines. After a week there was a strike, "so we went out with them. We were out for four weeks, and I came back to work on $12 dollars a week, and we worked for the rest of the summer until September when school started again".
Politically, he was "a real middle-of-the-road man", recalls his niece, Mary McGaver Dixon, though his father had been a Fine Gael regional health board member. John, however, declined co-option to succeed him. As a young man, Doris attended the wedding at St Mel's Cathedral, Longford, of his father's friend Sean McEoin and Alice Cooney, aunt of Patrick Cooney, later minister for defence. "As I looked around Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins walked right by . . ."
In 1939, with Mathew J Lyons, he established Longford's greyhound track. This proved more a labour of love than commerce. But in 1941, with Lyons and three other partners, the former Forresters Hall was opened very successfully as the Odeon cinema. He later owned it. (He proudly introduced the boxer, Jack Doyle, and his wife, Evita, from the stage.) Another cinema, the Adelphi, followed. In 1942 the partners built another Odeon in Tuam, refurbished an old pub and shop and sold them on. Doris briefly owned the Ambassador cinema in east Belfast but bowed to Orange Order distaste for the idea of Southern proprietorship.
By the 1950s he was known nationally. He bought a share in the Annaly Hotel and eventually owned it. It is now owned by Jim Reynolds, brother of the former taoiseach, Albert Reynolds. He says Doris, prominent in the local chamber of commerce, strongly believed the country and politics needed more businessmen.
Doris also co-owned the Midland Warehouse, now Supermacs.
The Glencormack Hotel, an imposing former Jameson whiskey family home, became a haunt of film stars - including Liz Taylor - and government ministers. The stars were filming at the nearby Ardmore Studios.
The minister for external affairs, Frank Aiken, often dined there with guests of the State. Doris got "a great buzz" out of it and had an easy facility with celebrities, says his niece. The hotel was a love of his life and its loss, due to a shortage of water on the night of the fire, had a devastating effect on him. He also briefly owned the nearby Sweeney's pub.
His ease with people is illustrated by a story during a visit to New York, where he stayed with relatives in Brooklyn. He was welcomed by the boxer Jack Dempsey at his bar in Times Square. After he had sat drinking for about half an hour with a customer he had said hello to, the barman came over and asked: "How do you know Joe di Maggio?"
Doris recalled that his female Brooklyn cousins "nearly swooned on the spot" when he returned home to tell them of his encounter with the baseball great. A charmer with many women friends and considered "a good catch", Doris never married.
Other interests included being joint trustee of the Longford Leader, and chairmanship of the Midland and Western Building Society, until purchased by the EBS. He was also a strong supporter of the Longford Men's Association and the Longford London Association.
Doris died peacefully at Elmhurst Convalescent Home, Glasnevin. His funeral this week at St Mel's Cathedral was a very well attended event. He is survived by his niece, Mary McGaver Dixon, and mourned by her husband, Colm Dixon, and his children, Susan, Mark and Andrew. He was predeceased by his younger sister, Novena, and a brother who died in infancy. He is also survived by many cousins in the US and in England.
John Edward Doris: born July 11th, 1903; died February 28th, 2005